The heated debate on WhatsApp's new "Terms and Conditions" has also involved the Indian government.
The heated debate on WhatsApp's new "Terms and Conditions" has also involved the Indian government. The social media giant recently updated its terms for using the apps, which left users with two options; or to accept the new changes or to greet the application.
WhatsApp gave users until February 8, 2021 to decide the same. The Indian government is concerned about user privacy. According to a TOI report, the government is "gathering details" on the matter and observing the changes Facebook has made to WhatsApp's policy that it would share user data with the company.
The government is concerned about the lack of data protection law in the country
The Indian government is a little bit nervous as there is no regulatory framework backed by strong data protection law to counter a situation like this. The government is also working on why the European Union has a lenient privacy policy for WhatsApp, but India has "wide-ranging terms" that could harm users' privacy.
The 2019 Personal Data Protection Bill (PDP) is in Parliament, but has yet to be approved. It is a policy that guarantees the privacy of Indian users. At the same time, Europe has an active General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which establishes a strict law to protect users' privacy and data.
For those who don't know, the new terms and conditions implemented by WhatsApp give the company the right to share location data, phone number, application usage pattern and more with Facebook and its suite of applications. , including Messenger and Instagram. Payment data (specifically of the transaction) will also be shared with the company.
The matter is currently under discussion in the Ministry of Information Technology and is expected to act by the government agency soon. The government could question WhatsApp head on as to why these policies were needed right now.
However, it's worth noting that this isn't the first time WhatsApp has had a confrontation with the Indian government.
The main issue concentrating on spreading fake message on whatsapp and there is the ongoing Cambridge Analytical data leak issue on WhatsApp. The company refused to help the government in any way, claiming that its users' chat data is end-to-end encrypted, which cannot be read or decrypted.
It will be interesting to see how the Indian government responds to this move from Facebook and WhatsApp. Whatever it is, if you are afraid or have trouble with WhatsApp, you can choose Telegram or Signal.
